A quiet bachelor left behind $5.7 million to help save his small Iowa town. Will it work?

Sac City businessman John Criss left $5.7 million to beautify the fading town.

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Sac City residents prepare to cut a ribbon in celebration of a rehab of the facades of some 20 downtown businesses and buildings via a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant that was leveraged for about a $770,000 total investment Thursday, May 25, 2017.(Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register)Buy Photo

SAC CITY, Iowa — John Criss was a lifelong bachelor who lived with his parents and never left the small town he loved.

He was 88 when he died May 28, 2015.

Two years later his reputation still lingers as the perfect gentleman who warmly welcomed customers into his Chief Clothing store on Main Street, where Criss felt responsible for dressing them in style.

To the surprise of almost all of his friends and neighbors in this county seat of 2,135 people, Criss turned out to be one of those quiet millionaires whose real net worth went largely unrecognized in everyday life. It was revealed only when he bequeathed the vast majority of his estate — about $5.7 million — to Sac City.

The late John Criss left behind $5.7 million for the "beautification" of his hometown, Sac City.(Photo: Special to the Register)

Criss, who retired in 1997, included one catch: The fortune must be spent on the "beautification" of Sac City.

In other words, the clothier posthumously will be responsible for dressing up the entire town for years to come.

Criss specified in his will that his money can't subsidize standard public works such as street repair or the annual $300,000 bill to pay off the city's sewer debt.

The big question that Criss raises from beyond the grave: Can $5.7 million make a meaningful difference in the fortunes of a small town that seems fated to fade like so many other farm communities?

Sac City has long since hit its peak population of 3,300 residents in the 1960s.

A photo of downtown Sac City taken in 1955.(Photo: Special to the Register)

The bequest at this point would represent about $2,600 per capita if it was doled out directly.

It's more than the city's budget of $4.2 million for the current fiscal year.

But what chance do ornate street signs, fancy streetlights and other décor stand in reversing such deep-seated decline?

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Mayor Scott Bundt, Renae Jacobsen, and Dwain "Dewey" Reece are the trustees in charge of spending the $5.7 million left by John Criss for the beautification of Sac City.(Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register)

Criss appointed three trustees and empowered them to spend the money as they saw fit, providing it was on public projects and property. Such a vague mandate without deadline or a detailed decision-making process probably isn’t a model for sound legal documents. But it shows the confidence that Criss had in his friends to make wise choices on behalf of the collective good.

His will even survived a court challenge from his own brother.

Sac City already has tried to think outside the box in a bid to boost tourism and civic morale: Just last year the town reclaimed its status as home to the world’s largest popcorn ball by rallying volunteers to sculpt a 9,370-pound blob that now sits on proud display.

Heavy equipment is used to move a ball of popcorn estimated to weigh 10,000 pounds at the Noble Popcorn plant in Sac City, Iowa.(Photo: Special to the Register)

But the Criss windfall could prove to be even more unwieldy.

“The more we work on projects, the more we find out how much money that is,” said Mayor Scott Bundt, one of three trustees. “Because you can do a $100,000 project and it’s a big deal. And it’s just a fraction of the money. It’s amazing how many things I think we can do with $5.7 million.”

Criss appointed whoever happens to be the sitting mayor to the trustee board. That decision seems to have built a savvy bridge between his fortune and the city government that must wrangle with both the blessings and complication of his generosity.

Another trustee, Renae Jacobsen, 61, grew up in Sac City and first shopped at Chief Clothing alongside her dad. Criss later hired her in 1993, and she remained his bookkeeper for the rest of his life. She's now assistant vice president of operations at Iowa State Bank.

Even Jacobsen had no idea about the trust until the reading of the will.

“Certain things John didn’t ever discuss,” she said. “And you didn’t ask questions. You just knew if he wanted you to know something, he would tell you.”

The third trustee, Dwain “Dewey” Reece, followed a job to Sac City back when small towns flexed more economic muscle. He arrived in 1966 with his family to work for the rural electric cooperative.

In his last years, Criss, suffering from macular degeneration, hired Reece, now retired and single, to drive him around and help him navigate everyday life. Reece became his eyes.

“In his way, he’s got Dewey and I wrapped up in the legacy of this town, too,” Jacobsen said. “I never dreamed that I would be a part of something like this.”

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Sac City, Iowa, in June 2016 built its fourth giant popcorn ball -- this one weighing more than 10,000 pounds!
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A thank-you to his community for its support

Even though I never met Criss, I know he would cringe to see his name as the first two words published here.

“John was a private person,” Reece said. “He just liked to get things done in a quiet kind of a way.”

Criss spent his days here on Main Street selling everything from a simple T-shirt to crisp suits tailored to his exacting detail.

And that’s the way it was for most of the 20th century: Criss or his father before him was the clothier responsible for keeping the people of Sac City looking spiffy.

The Crisses not only helped define this downtown with one of its key shops. The family basically was responsible for the town’s very existence.

John Criss kept an orderly showroom floor in his Chief Clothing store that occupied Main Street in downtown Sac City for most of the 20th century.(Photo: Special to The Register)

Criss’ great-grandfather, Judge Eugene Criss, was “the father of Sac City” who migrated west from the East Coast in the 19th century and without whom this probably never would have rated a blip on the prairie.

Criss in 2013 donated a gazebo to the town in honor of his great-grandfather. Despite prodding from both Jacobsen and Reece, he refused to attend the modest ribbon cutting. He protested that the focus should remain on his ancestor.

Criss himself was born in Rockford, Ill., but raised and schooled in Sac City.

The 1945 school yearbook from Criss’ senior year shows his long list of activities and honors, from clarinet to National Honor Society to his role as star center on the basketball team.

Handout photo of John Criss, who left $5.7 million for the beautification of Sac City.(Photo: Special to the Register)

That same yearbook on its back pages lists more than 100 local businesses as sponsors among what was then a robust Sac City business community, including a canning company, mill, hatchery and creamery.

Criss earned an economics degree from the University of Iowa and worked briefly as a salesman for an Illinois clothing company.

He served two years (1950-52) in Japan and Korea during the Korean War then joined his father (also named Eugene) at the clothing store in 1953.

His father had bought his way into the business in 1922 in what was then Cobb Clothing. That was the same year he married Criss’ mother, Alice. The couple took over full ownership of the store in 1929 and renamed it Chief Clothing.

“The beautification of Sac City remains a lifelong interest,” one of the town histories wrote of Criss’ father, with what now sounds like foreshadowing.

As the decades wore on, Criss arranged his weekly routine in Sac City with the same orderly manner that he applied to the sales floor of his clothing store.

His relentless devotion to exercise included a daily swim at the 93-year-old pool in the basement of the Sac Community Center.

He was reputed to be one of the best golfers in town.

Criss and Reece like clockwork attended morning coffee at a local diner.

Monday nights were reserved for a gentlemen’s cocktails group with a rotating host. Reece, a teetotaler, was their bartender.

Wednesday nights were spent at the country club; Reece dropped off Criss on the way to Bible study.

Criss in recent years dined at the Sac County Cattle Company on Thursday and Saturday nights — the restaurant that occupies the retail space he once commanded. I can almost imagine that as Criss’ eyesight dimmed his memories of the clothing store danced through his mind’s eye all the more readily as he sat there.

“One of the reasons that John did this,” Reece said of the bequest, “was a thank-you to this community for the support for that store.”

I spent time in Sac City with questions aplenty not only about whether Criss truly can alter the town's trajectory but about the course of the clothier’s own life.

So many of his peers have died that his persona remains hazy at best. I left town without the vivid character sketch I craved.

I asked his friends and family whether Criss ever had fallen in love, or if there were any inkling that he regretted never leaving his hometown.

There was “a girlfriend that we all thought he was going to marry” just after college, said his sister-in-law, Emogene Criss, but the Korean War interrupted the relationship.

“I think he was really satisfied with his life," she said. "He had a host of friends, and he entertained them, and he loved every minute of entertaining them.”

As his neighbor Bruce Perry put it, “I think that John chose his friends to become his family."

'He realized what the town meant to his family'

The reading of the will shocked not only the trustees and townsfolk but also Criss’ older brother, Eugene Jr. (Gene), 91, and his wife, Emogene.

“It did kind of leave us with our jaw dropped open,” Emogene said.

The couple, now living in Denver, Colo., visited Sac City in 2006 to help usher Criss through heart bypass surgery at the hospital in Fort Dodge. Over dinner the night before, Criss told her and Gene, Emogene said, that no matter what happened the next day they would be taken care of.

“And that I will never forget hearing,” she said. “And that’s why we did the challenge (against the will).”

Their lawsuit argued that Criss lacked mental capacity to alter his will in 2014 and was unduly influenced by his handlers.

But the broad consensus in Sac City seems to be that in the last decade of his life Criss simply became fascinated with the intertwined history of his family and hometown. Perhaps the lifelong bachelor suddenly felt a stronger paternal instinct for what he gradually saw as the family he already had.

Judge Eugene Criss was the "father of Sac City" who settled there in 1855, built the first cabin in town and served as its first mayor and postmaster.(Photo: Special to the Register)

Judge Eugene settled here in 1855. He built the first cabin in Sac City and served as the town's first mayor and postmaster.

About 3,500 people — more than ever lived in Sac City — flocked to celebrate Judge Eugene’s 80th birthday in July 1902, before he died the following March.

Criss' bequest in retrospect seems like a bid to carry on his family's work to ensure that Sac City remains a living memorial to the ingenuity and perseverance of his family of local merchants.

The humble gazebo was just the warning shot.

Besides the bulk gift to town, Criss also paid lump sums to a variety of relatives and civic institutions — including $100,000 for his brother, $20,000 apiece for Jacobsen and Reece, $10,000 for the library and so forth.

Suggestions on how to spend $5.7 million

As Criss caught the history bug, his actual health declined through a series of illnesses and surgeries.

He broke his leg in September 2014, landed at the local rehabilitation center and never made it back home.

The lawsuit was settled in February, clearing the way for the payout of Criss’ estate and for the work of his trust to begin in earnest.

More than one person remarked to me that they’re relieved not to be a trustee, destined to disappoint no matter which projects they fund.

The trustees are being lobbied with recommendations; beautification is in the eye of the beholder. A small box decorated in flower print sits on the center island at Iowa State Bank in view of Jacobsen's desk, with a sign taped to its side: “SAC CITY BEAUTIFICATION SUGGESTIONS.”

The first visible result of Criss' fortune will be modest. They include pampas grass to be planted on the bank of the North Raccoon River near the gazebo honoring Judge Eugene.

And all 383 or so street corner signs throughout town will be replaced with fancier versions.

Technically the trust could be organized in such a way to reinvest a portion of its funds and perpetuate itself. Such an arrangement leveraged in combination with, say, city bonds, could fund even grander public projects. The trustees, meanwhile, receive up to $2,000 apiece annually for their services.

But Bruce Becker, the local attorney who helped Criss craft the will, said that his client intended his beautification fund be used in a timely manner, without setting a hard deadline.

The trustees say they're researching at least one major public project yet to be unveiled that they hope will make the sort of splash that their late friend would have wanted to see on behalf of his city.

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Jade Drost and her son Cyrus, 2, eat cake during a celebration in downtown Sac City Thursday, May 25, 2017.
(Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register)

Standing defiant despite bleak statistics

Last week I watched as 50 or so civic leaders gathered downtown to celebrate a face-lift to some 20 businesses. It was a sign of Sac City's feisty resolve that stirred long before the Criss bequest. The town in recent years leveraged a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant for a total investment of about $770,000 to rehab private businesses and buildings.

The townsfolk, many of them clad in red chamber of commerce shirts, wandered into the middle of the street for a celebratory photo as traffic was stopped in both directions.

That image sticks in my mind: a gaggle of rural Iowans standing defiantly in the middle of Main Street, as if trying to reverse the flow of recent decades that has been emptying out the home they love. Whether $5.7 million can be the tipping point to spur economic revival remains to be seen. Most of the bleak statistics seem to favor the skeptics.

The 2,453-square-foot home built in 1900, where Criss once lived and trod the plush green carpet in the living room, remains available for $117,000. No matter who lives here, they're unlikely to be so connected to Sac City's history as its former resident.

“If (Criss) hadn’t given this city a dime,” remarked Barb Powell, the previous mayor, “we would still be all saying these nice things about him.”

I get a sense that the daily investment of his character that this gentleman bachelor left on the streets of Sac City may linger even after his $5.7 million has been spent.